Thursday, January 14, 2010

Burdan of Morality in Journalism

“What role should journalists play in society?” An important question that was put in my mind after reading the summary of an online talk show at philosophytalk.org. Dale Jacquette, a guest on the talk show and a Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University believes that “journalists are obligated to provide relevant truth telling in the public’s interest.” I believe that the one major ethical problem with this statement is that not everything should be published in the “public’s interest.” If the public wants to know something that compromises the privacy or any other rights of someone else then it should not be published under most circumstances. This is why there are laws but if by some chance the piece of information is not covered by any law then the journalist needs to make a judgment call. There is a large responsibility that comes with being a journalist, and part of that is being able to make a morally sound decision on what and what not to publish.


A dilemma from Melvin Mencher’s book, News Reporting and Writing is that a young woman charged a member of the Kennedy family with rape, and then different news agencies published the woman’s name when it was discovered. Was this in the public’s interest? No, there was no real reason to publish her name. All it did was sacrifice her right to privacy after a reportedly traumatic incident. The moral thing to do would’ve been to ask the woman if they could reveal her identity and if they did not get recorded permission then they shouldn’t have revealed it.


In my opinion journalists are supposed to relay information to the public but without compromising anyone’s rights unless it is significantly for the greater good of someone else, not out of some “obligation” to report to the “public interest."


Mencher, Melvin. "The Morality of Journalism". News Reporting and Writing. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2008.


"Ethics in Journalism". Philosophy Talk. 1/14/10

www.philosophytalk.org/pastShows/EthicsinJournalism.html>.

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